


Countdown

by fansofcollisions



Category: House M.D.
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Drug Use, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-13
Updated: 2016-10-13
Packaged: 2018-08-22 04:39:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,058
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8273143
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fansofcollisions/pseuds/fansofcollisions
Summary: On a Thursday, Wilson gets a phone call from Princeton Borough Jail. On a Friday, he goes through and finds every pill in House’s apartment.





	

**3**

**Cradled in an ashtray like Sunday mints.**

It’s what they caution patients never to do – hell, it’s half the reason the ER pulls in the tax dollars it does – too many careless adults and sticky fingered children. It’s lucky then that he’s the only one who comes around here, and he knows not to expect any bowls of candy left out on tables for visiting guests. That’s for grandmothers and churches, and he can’t picture House allowing either into his apartment.

**5**

**Mingled with assorted dice and little blue and pink pegs.**

The Game of Life was Stacy’s gift for their five-year anniversary, which was actually their five-year-one-month-six-day anniversary but it was so easy to lose track of time in hospitals, under the heavy drone of morphine machines. Nobody else could have gotten away with such a pointed gesture, but that was Stacy for you.

He’d have expected House to lose his taste for it once there were only two to play, but he still brought it out every once in a while, lodged between an armpit and a six-pack of beer cheaper than either of their salaries dictated. They invariably spend the first drink searching for game pieces amidst the sea of orange prescription bottles in the bureau drawer.

**17**

**Lining the pockets of sports jackets and grey hoodies.**

God, it’s a wonder House doesn’t go around looking like a naughty schoolboy sentenced to clapping erasers. The man’s aversion to shaking hands might just as well be an effort to hide the white powder between knuckles: a cloying, chalky film that Wilson washes off with other tagalong particulate in the bathroom sink before continuing the search. The medicine must have seeped into the fabric of the lining by now – airport security dogs would have a field day, and there’s another aversion justified.

All of House’s anti-socialisms explained neatly away by the Vicodin. Isn’t that a pleasant thought?

**0**

**Nothing in the mason jar but flour.**

He dips a finger in and brings it to his lips, just in case.

**41**

**Hidden beneath cushions**

**Trodden underfoot**

**Neatly wedged in the spaces between linoleum tiles.**

House used to have a maid, or at least, had someone to “clean up”, whatever that meant. Maybe he still does, and she just isn’t as careful with the broom as she is with her hands. Maybe she found more gainful employment, though he knows that for all his rudeness and general assholery, he’s not one to shortchange a server or skimp on a tip (unless he’s testing his companion’s morality, of course) and he can’t see the man paying anything but a fair wage. Or maybe House just knows that if it gets bad enough, there will always be one person willing to get down on his hands and knees to clean up the mess.

…Case in point.

**34**

**In a shoebox shoved half-heartedly beneath the bed.**

Surprisingly cliché for a man who likes to play at the movie-star-suave sort of drug addiction.

On a related note, he’s stopped counting pills and started counting bottles.

**3**

**Tidily wrapped in a stapled paper bag.**

The three of them once had dinner together: he, House, and Julie. Years ago, when his wife hadn’t yet grown sick of him (which took a considerable length of time) or of House (which took considerably less). It was a good month, pain-wise, so House was capable of doing things like leaving the apartment to walk to the corner store. It also meant he had emotional headspace for feelings other than resigned bitterness, which is why it took Julie near to the end of the evening to find the bag of pills stashed guiltily behind a box of cereal. Wilson had stuttered and tried to explain it away, but all she did was turn up her nose and sniff, in that bourgeoisie tone he can’t believe he once found charming, “At least he’s not an alcoholic.”

He puts a handful of whiskey bottles in the recycling along with the emptied bag.

Yes, thank god for that.

**1**

**Innocuous and lonely on the bathroom counter.**

It’s the only bottle he finds in the bathroom. There are none in the medicine cabinet, beneath the drainpipe, hidden amongst dollar store shampoo and boutique brand body wash. This is how normal peoples’ bathrooms look. This is how _his_ bathroom looks. This is how the rest of the apartment should have looked when he arrived if House had any sanity left in him. Of course, if he’d thought that was the case, he wouldn’t have flown over here in a tizzy after a few soft threats in a darkened office.

He moves the bottle to the cabinet, neatly centered between toothpaste and Listerine, twisting it just until the label is hidden from view.

A little normalcy couldn’t hurt.

 

                                                               

 

**68**

**The final tally.**

He keeps the bag tucked under his arm the whole way back to his car, rattling like maracas, loud enough to wake the neighbours. He glances at it the whole way back to his apartment and doesn’t dare take stock until the lock of his own door is turned.

68 bottles. Some with cotton guard still intact, some filled with more lint than medicine, some near enough to empty it almost wasn’t worth the taking.

68 bottles, and every single one with his name attached.

He should be angry. He should want to kill House for what he’s done, what he _must_ have done, but instead there’s nothing but relief. Thank god he got there in time. Thank god there were no midnight raids, no ultimatums, no demotions or inquiries or court-ordered rehab. Thank god.

68 bottles, all lined up in a row.

_ Fact _

_He’s got enough sitting here on his kitchen counter to convict any man for intent to distribute._

This is not a fact he knows. This is a fact he learns after 43 minutes of sitting at the island barstool with his head in his hands. A white-haired police officer murmurs it into the crook of his neck, too many white teeth smiling like pills between red gums, and with his face pressed into the marble all he can see is his own name, again and again and again and again.

He starts the count of days until someone pays his bail at 1.

He isn’t holding his breath.

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this for a friend's birthday. She wanted House/Wilson. I gave her pain. This is usually how our gift exchanges go.


End file.
